I believe words are the most powerful things in human societies. Anything, and anyone, can be built or destroyed with words. This tenet is the foundation of my work in poetry, in art, and as a curator.
Through my daily practice I identify barriers to living out loud with an open heart. My artworks are emblems of my commitment to engage the breadth of my own and others’ humanity. When I am creating, I am totally unafraid. The creative process is a grace state for me, and I spend a lot of time there. My faith in creativity has allowed me to surmount early discord in my family life, and to see how making things can be a path to joy and agency for others.
I am in love with the physical manifestation of things—their color, smell, texture, size—the entire visceral world. More than anything, I’ve come to see the universe as a place constantly in motion so that there is no fixed truth, no absolute, immutable reality. My worldview is infinitely flexible, dedicated to probing what is before me precisely because it is so fleeting.
The heart of my practice is working beyond fear; more specifically, living outside the fear–state that is the centrifugal force of much of American culture. This state is induced and reinforced by the proliferation of violent public images and language, narrowly defined scripts for relationship, silences around racial and gender aggression, tolerance for the degradation of certain populations, and a stunning disrespect for the natural world.
American culture thrives on aggression. More than that, the culture’s connection to violence has an orgiastic intensity that is rarely discussed, that permeates and taints much of contemporary life. This perpetual hum of threat is designed to induce a state of arousal that diminishes our capacity to rest, to digest, to be uncertain—all fundamental components of creativity.
My mission as an artist, writer, and as the Artistic Director of Artpoetica Project Space in Gowanus is to tell the sometimes brutal truth about what I see around me, and to honor and celebrate my own and others’ ability to thrive, sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Each thing I make is a kind of spirit bomb. Over decades I’ve built a life that is defiantly erotic. By erotic I mean open, without fear of being subsumed, while understanding that the body I’m in is continually deconstructing then re–imagining itself.
I commit to one creative act every day, and have devoted my life to remaining rapturously curious. I am a ferocious champion of every human being’s right to celebrate their life as a singular miracle.
https://www.artpoetica.org/my-wish